


all but means nothing

by sirenofodysseus



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sirenofodysseus/pseuds/sirenofodysseus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even if the killer heard the maddening timbre of his own bleeding heart. Team!fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red John

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this back in June/July for The Mentalist Reverse Big Bang 2012, but because I fail at cross-posting, I am just now getting around to moving this fic to multiple places. 
> 
> And just so no one tries to sue me, I don't own _The Tale-Tale Heart_ by Edgar Allan Poe or _The Poison Tree_ by William Blake. (I also don't own _The Mentalist_.) 
> 
> You can also find the artwork that inspired this piece (by the very talented kielamyis) [HERE](http://kielamyis.livejournal.com/25352.html), but the first piece can be considered NSFW.

Red John’s decision had been made long before anything else. The Serious Crimes Unit—Patrick Jane’s misfit group of friends—had long labeled themselves a family and the label of a family deserved some retribution.

 

He didn’t want Jane having a family. He didn’t want Jane having people to lean on. Call it what you will—selfish, needy, attention seeking—but if Jane had others around him, he stopped thinking about the revenge and nobody wanted that. Red John had picked Patrick as a worthy adversary, somebody who could equal to his level and catch him, if only he tried hard enough.

 

However, it was clear that Patrick wasn’t trying hard enough. In fact, the ex-conman seemed to have completely forgotten about him and they couldn’t have that, could they? He had given the man clue after clue and yet, the man walked away. He blamed the entire _team_. He blamed Senior Agent Teresa Lisbon for involving herself where she didn’t belong. He blamed everybody else on the team by association.

 

Patrick needed to be reminded that stopping his hunt had casualties, but who could he pass the message along too?  

 

The most obvious answer was Teresa Lisbon; Patrick’s friend and distraction. He had tempted twisting Teresa to his brilliant logic, but what would Patrick ultimately learn from that? He could take her from her home or the CBI, he could have a little fun with her body—torture was a rarely appreciated form of art, after all—before he would return her back to him, dead. He’d have no problems sending of one of his many friends into the CBI with her body, and he would take immense pleasure in watching Patrick’s reaction. He could see the consultant’s look of agony and anger at the sight of his best friend, her once beating heart having been cut from her chest as a message to keep playing the game and it filled him with thrill.

 

However, because Patrick cared more than he should have for Teresa, her death would send Patrick spiraling into a mental breakdown. He’d be forced into a psychiatric hospital and their little game—the game they had both spent years perfecting and playing—would be terminated without forethought.

 

Red John didn’t want that. He enjoyed the thrill of being chased. He enjoyed the thrill of getting away. He enjoyed the death and the destruction that his getting away made. If the game _was_ terminated, he’d have to find somebody else to challenge and well, he had become extremely fond of Patrick. He didn’t want the man suffering the mental probes from psychologists, who thought they knew the world with their psychobabble.

 

Of course, if he couldn’t take and maim Teresa, he knew he could always use Grace Van Pelt; the team’s junior agent. Grace’s continuing naivety would make it easy to lure her away from the CBI and once in his grasp, he could use the life of any of her co-workers (or friends, as Craig had said she thought of them to be) as leverage for her to act upon his orders. Eventually, she’d slip up—a warning sign, of sorts, to her precious friends—and she’d be under the mercy of his knife. He’d prop her lifeless body outside the Sacramento area, call in an anonymous tip, and as the team found her, he’d be watching from afar.

 

They’d find his message first—his smiley face carved into her abdomen, premortem—and then, they’d all have a thirst for revenge.

 

However, as much as the idea _did_ thrill him, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Grace had already been pushed to her limits and contrary to popular beliefs, he wasn’t a monster. Grace had shot her fiancé, Craig O’Laughlin, and that left more than enough emotional problems for her to wade through. Grace was a broken spirit and he felt his work—even though, it hadn’t been intentional—was finished with her.

 

Which left either Wayne Rigsby or Kimball Cho, and both men had certain amounts of usefulness about them.

 

Grace cared about Wayne and Wayne cared about Grace; he had witnessed the occasional flirtation between the two at his crime scenes. It was a cute, innocent, puppy love—something neither of them could fully understood—and now that Wayne had Sarah and his little bundle of joy, it became painfully obvious that neither of them had appreciated the gift he had bestowed upon them; the gift of life and a possible chance of happiness.

 

He could take Wayne from his home, he could have dragged him away from his beloved child and annoying girlfriend, and he could have punished him for the grave offense and rejection. Wayne would return home, dead, and the entire team would feel the blow. He could see their faces—shocked, stoic, horrified, and angered—and as much as their fickle emotions amused him, he knew he couldn’t bring himself to end Wayne’s life. 

 

The little bundle of joy—Benjamin, one of his many friends within the CBI had told him—needed a father figure and he wasn’t a monster. He had only killed Patrick’s wife and child due to the running of his mouth on national television, and whether or not others agreed with him, Patrick had been long overdue for a lesson. His wife had denounced his psychic career and even if he had continued with the sham of his career choice, she probably would have eventually left him.

 

He had never been one for patience though, hence the speeding up of destruction via his knife.

 

If Teresa, Grace, and Wayne couldn’t be taken or used, it left Kimball Cho.

 

Kimball Cho, who already didn’t trust Patrick and was Teresa’s right hand man. Kimball Cho, who had a close friendship with Wayne and worked well with Grace. He knew Kimball’s disappearance (and the accompanying slow, painful death) would be an even larger blow to the team, who thought only Patrick and Teresa were being targeted.

 

Red John’s lips slowly quirked into a smile; he couldn’t wait until his gleaming blade parted soft skin and made scarlet waves, which would crash onto the floor.

 

Kimball’s disappearance would communicate the importance of time, because when it came down to it, they were all running against a ticking clock.

 


	2. Patrick Jane

“Cho was last seen…”

 

Patrick Jane stretched out across his couch, as he vaguely listened to Lisbon’s debriefing about Cho’s disappearance to Grace and Rigsby, who both seemed startled that _anything_ like this could happen to one of their own. Of course, it wasn’t entirely _too_ surprising that Red John, although the team disagreed about the serial killer’s involvement, would go after one of them; it was just surprising that Red John had gone after Cho and not Lisbon.

 

Cho hadn’t technically done anything to the serial killer, unless it was by mere association, while Lisbon had done more than enough to receive his ire. Lisbon had stood by him, supported him, gotten him out of trouble, taken the heat for his rarer moments of stupidity, etc., etc., etc…whereas Cho…well…Cho didn’t trust him, and that much was obvious. It beyond baffled him on why Red John would take somebody, who might have known absolutely nothing about him or his plans, instead of somebody, who might have known almost everything about him and his plans.

 

Not that he had _wanted_ Red John to take Lisbon. He had just wondered why Cho and not Lisbon.

 

            “…we’ll have forensics sweep the evidence for prints…”

 

Jane almost rolled his eyes. If Red John had been converting and killing individuals for fourteen years and hadn’t been caught yet, why did anybody honestly think that they were going to get prints off a blood-stained coffee cup? Sure, the team had their doubts—but how could they doubt the various pieces of evidence? The blood-stained coffee cup littered on the alleyway ground, the abandoned SUV with a note attached, which read: _In the morning glad I see/my foe outstretched beneath the tree_.

 

The poem—a William Blake; _A Poison Tree_ —had immediately signaled Red John’s presence, and that had left him with heightened senses and a dry mouth. Each time Red John reemerged to claim yet another victim, he could feel himself getting closer and closer to finally getting vengeance. And now that the serial killer had Cho? Jane felt a sudden rush of adrenaline burst through his veins. He knew the chances of him finally being identified would shoot through the roof.

 

If only Red John would make it _that_ easy.

 

He could only imagine how they’d find Cho, as Red John showed no mercy to his enemies. They’d all probably burst into some nondescript room, months after following dead leads and being continuously reprimanded by Gale Bertram for not doing their actual jobs, only to stumble upon Cho’s lifeless (and completely nude) body. His body would be dangling against a gray, blood splattered wall; his wrists and body held up by shimmering scarlet-stained chains. At first, they wouldn’t focus on the blood splattered walls or the scarlet-stained chains. They’d all focus on the black metal collar that encircled his muscular neck, which had probably tightened with every shallow breath taken and the familiar Red John smiley face, crudely drawn with a knife, into Cho’s lower back.

 

Red John would already be long gone; the room would be completely spotless, except for the traces of a tragically-ended human life—fecal matter on the floor, the stale scent of urine within the room, the ever-present stench of death—and the entire team, except for himself, would feel shaken by the loss.

 

Lisbon would order that the room be swept for prints, though she already knew that none would be found.

 

Rigsby would stare at the vacant wall, thinking about what he could have done differently to save his good friend.

 

Grace would try to comfort them all, but eventually, she too would succumb to the depression of losing a close friend.

 

And Cho’s body, unbound and released, would be in a mortuary; a long, slender blade carving through his skin, vital organs being weighed, tagged, explored, and the time of death being slated as nearly twenty-four hours before they had found him.

 

 _He didn’t die of blood loss_ , Jane could imagine the stern Medical Examiner telling them all, as they stood in Lisbon’s office, _he died of asphyxiation._

 

Asphyxiation or suffocation,  one of the worst ways to die. It was slow and painful. It was methodical and cruel. It was unbefitting and completely out of character for Red John, which would make most of them question _who_ killed Cho; was it Red John or was it some unknown agent?

 

He would say Red John, because he had no uncertainties. Red John was a monster. Red John was a cruel human being, who had absolutely no qualms in setting them all up to crash and burn. The team would agree, for the proof—the bleeding smiley, taunting them all on tawny skin—could not be unseen.

 

Bertram, Jane knew, would disagree. The CBI’s reputation was more important and the knowledge that Red John had slipped through _his_ CBI again would make him uneasy. The public would be told just enough— _Agent Kimball Cho was found late last night. He was killed. Sympathies go out to his family and friends during this difficult time._ —and the unsolved and highly speculated case, would be pushed back into an unsolved file. _A cold case_ , Lisbon often called them.

 

Cho’s killer would never be caught and the bastard, who ultimately destroyed so many lives, would eventually ruin theirs.

 

Of course, _how_ it ruined their lives depended on the road that they each decided upon taking.

 

The first road was his road: the burning obsession to find and kill Red John.

 

The last road was a road best traveled alone: the slow, downward spiral into insanity.

 

And all of the roads in-between? They were just of less consequence, but deadly all the same.

 

            “Jane?” Lisbon’s voice interrupted his dark internal musing, while he glanced up at her from his couch. She leaned against Van Pelt’s desk, as all three of the agents stared at him; hope written across their features. “Do you have anything to add?”

 

Jane glanced upwards, before he glanced back at them. He had _plenty_ of things he could have added, but just nothing they probably wanted to hear. “I have nothing to add, Lisbon.” He heard Lisbon sigh, before he watched her go back to focusing on her murder board.  Jane closed his eyes. The entire team would try their hardest to find Cho alive, he would give them that, but he feared that even their hardest wouldn’t be good enough this time.


	3. Wayne Rigsby

“Forensics couldn’t find any fingerprints, boss.”

 

Wayne Rigsby sat behind his desk, while he listened to Grace update Lisbon from her own desk. It had only been two days, six hours, and twenty-three minutes since Cho’s disappearance and now, without a doubt, they all knew that Red John had been involved. They had all been working on only a few hours of sleep and enough caffeine to keep a small child up for days, but they weren’t any closer to finding Cho or making a break in the case.

 

He frowned at the thought that his best friend was being held at Red John’s cruel mercy. Cho had done absolutely nothing to deserve being targeted—aside from putting up with Jane’s antics—and although it was a terrible thing to even contemplate, he wished Red John would have taken Jane instead of Cho.

 

Jane—the consultant, who remained on his couch and continued to sleep the day away—could handle it. Red John didn’t want him dead, after all.

 

Jane—the consultant, who he wanted to haul off and punch in the face—could get out. Red John, without out a doubt, saw Jane as an helpful ally and if Jane agreed, just to buy himself more time, Red John would let him live.

 

Cho—his best friend, who was missing—probably wouldn’t survive the week. Red John would see no point in keeping anybody around, who did not have knowledge of Jane’s most inner thoughts.

 

Cho—his best friend, who hadn’t done anything to the serial killer—probably wouldn’t ever be found alive. Red John undoubtedly knew how to meticulously hack up each and every body part, so what exactly would stop the serial killer from pulling a move worthy of Edgar Allan Poe’s _The Tale-Tale Heart_?

 

 _You fancy me mad,_ he silently quoted the work, _Madmen know nothing._

 

His heart skipped a beat and his stomach dropped at the quote; _The Tale-Tale Heart_ , he remembered well, was when the narrator had hacked up human remains and hid all of the dismembered body parts under the wooden floorboards, only to be driven to confess to the murder, due to the deafening beating of a heart.

 

Of course, Red John would never confess—even if the killer heard the maddening timbre of his own bleeding heart.

 

Red John would taunt and taunt them all; decomposing body parts by mail, bleeding red letters, pictures of Cho’s final moments uploaded into Grace’s computer and they would be helpless to it all.

 

In his opinion, nearly everybody within the CBI cared whether they found Cho, with the exception of Jane. Jane only cared about himself and his ever-so important quest for vengeance, which had gotten Cho taken in the first place.

 

And if it weren’t for the fact Cho needed them all to keep their heads to find him, he would have driven his fist into Jane’s face and nose, many times. The imagined sound of the man’s anguished cries, the imagined sight of the man’s nose spurting blood, dripping and staining nearly everything red, and the imagined condition of his own hands, sore and splotched scarlet, partially from the impact upon Jane’s face and partially from Jane’s inability not to bleed everywhere, would have made him feel better. The imagined sights and sensations would have served to damper down the sick tendrils of guilt that had settled within his stomach, because Cho hadn’t meant to be there.

 

Lisbon could have told him no. Lisbon could have ignored his request to go home early.

 

But she hadn’t, and he had gone ahead home.  

 

Benjamin had been running a fever, Sarah had needed some rest, and Lisbon had given him the permission to leave early to take care of his ailing son. Cho had taken his place for the stake-out and now, they were all paying due to one minor digression in the schedule.

 

            “Any leads on the wording, Rigsby?” Lisbon’s voice interrupted his thoughts and he hurried glanced down at the photocopied image of the note attached to the SUV.

 

            “It’s a poem from William Blake.” Jane interjected from his couch and everybody turned to stare at the consultant; the man hadn’t been helpful at all and a small part of him wondered why Jane would say anything at all now. “ _A Poison Tree_. Good poetry, but not nearly as tasteful as _The Tyger_ , don’t you think?” The blonde haired consultant wore a smile—not like his usual _I’m right_ one, as this one didn’t quite reach his eyes—and he wondered what, if anything, the consultant had been thinking.

 

 _It’s probably about how relieved he is that it’s Cho, instead of Lisbon being gone_ , his thoughts quietly nagged.

 

And he couldn’t hate the consultant for that line of thinking, because he had just thought the same thing about Jane. It just made him blind with pure fury, as he knew he was entirely useless to what his best friend was going through.

 

He clenched his fists together, as Jane’s soft voice faded from his ears. If Red John had come after Cho, what prevented the serial killer from coming after any of them? Or any of their family members? He felt a tightening in his chest; what if the serial killer targeted either Sarah or Benjamin? Sarah and he didn’t always get along, but he couldn’t stomach the idea that Red John would come after the mother of his child. Or, that Red John would come after his little bundle of pure joy, like Red John had come after Jane’s daughter, years ago.

 

            “We’ll find him.” Grace offered, optimistically and he blinked. When had Grace approached him? He could feel the redheaded agent’s hand on his upper arm—warm and bringing a small slither of comfort, which he most certainly didn’t deserve—and he recoiled slightly.

 

He didn’t want their false promises or false hopes or whatever else they could currently give him, he just wanted his best friend back, alive.

 

And if they couldn’t give him that, then, he wanted absolutely nothing from them at all.


	4. Teresa Lisbon

“Red John won’t kill him, Lisbon, trust me.”

 

Teresa Lisbon focused her attention on Jane, as they sat across from each other within the white-lighted, empty kitchenette at one in the morning; Jane had his little turquoise cup of tea pressed against his pink lips, while she had her hot, black mug of coffee pressed against her cupped palms. She had ordered Rigsby, Jane and Van Pelt to leave the CBI nearly two hours ago, as she knew that none of them could continue to function on crap-tasting coffee, but Jane had refused to leave until she did.

 

Of course, she had a slightly sneaking suspicion that he knew she wasn’t going to leave, as he had brought dinner for them both from a late night dinner, and as much as they both knew she could probably use a few hours of sleep; they both knew that she would never get it. 

 

Cho’s kidnapping weighed heavily down upon her and every time she closed her eyes, she saw him behind her eyelids—his lifeless, gutted body, slumped onto the floor with Red John’s smiley across from them all; the white wall painted in a friend’s blood. Enough demons haunted her already—her mother, her father, her brothers, Samuel Bosco, Patrick Jane—and she most certainly didn’t want to have yet another demon shadowing her for the rest of her life.

 

Yes, Cho was her subordinate, and hell yes, she was beyond pissed that Red John had taken one of their own, but above anything else, Cho was her friend—somebody she cared, liked, and enjoyed being around—and Jane’s soothing words of “everything will be fine” and a warm dinner from down the street, wasn’t helping at all.

 

 _Red John won’t kill him, he says_ , she mocked him in her head with a small grimace, _trust me_ , _he says_.

 

Jane knew all about Red John, which was something she could never deny or argue. The man practically lived, breathed, and slept the Red John case, but she thought—and it wasn’t the first time she had given this a thought—that he grossly underestimated the serial killer.

 

Red John, who had killed over a dozen individuals—mostly women—wouldn’t hesitate to kill somebody, just because they were (or weren’t) privy to Jane’s inner thoughts. Red John, she wanted to continuously remind Jane, had killed Sam and his team for so much less years ago…though, she would never admit that she thought he underestimated the killer, as talking to Jane—especially while investigating anything Red John related—had always proven itself to be nearly pointless.

 

Jane only usually listened to himself and wasting her breath while she could be finding Cho, made absolutely no sense. Saying nothing in response to him, she forced herself up from the kitchenette table and started back toward her office.

 

Realistically, she knew that Red John could have taken any of them—Jane, Rigsby, Van Pelt, and even herself—but he hadn’t; he had taken Cho. Instead of choosing someone, who Jane had most certainly thought the serial killer would (for the consultant had pretty much confessed to having painted a huge target on her back), the serial killer had surprised them all by doing the opposite.

 

In that moment though, as her feet crossed the threshold into her dimly lit office, she couldn’t help but move her lips into a ghost of a smile;  Patrick Jane had been wrong, once again, and she had a strong feeling that if Cho had been there, they all (minus Jane, of course) would be poking fun at the wonder.

 

            “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” Jane’s voice interrupted her thoughts and she lost her smile. Jane, though he would never admit it out loud, blamed himself for Cho’s disappearance. His evasiveness, lack of input and general air of nonchalance toward the entire situation wasn’t because he _didn’t_ care, because if anything, Jane _did_ care—he just couldn’t outwardly show it. Red John’s game—the sick and twisted version of cat and mouse—extended way past the notion of petty vengeance or slander and _any_ emotion Jane showed—concern, adoration, annoyance, embarrassment, or abhorrence—always had the possibility of being pitted against him by the serial killer.

 

And if _anybody_ could vouch for him and his quirky yet highly effective methods, she could.

 

She had been working with him for more than four years and _every_ single time a Red John case crept in, none of them felt as blameworthy as Jane. He had devoted nearly ten years of his life to his quest for vengeance toward the serial killer, who had slaughtered his wife and child, and Red John was _still_ at large—killing, taunting, kidnapping, and reminding them all that they’d never be free from his little games.

 

            “I heard you the first fifty or so times that you said it, Jane.” She focused her attention back on him, as he sat down on her white couch and closed his eyes. “And unless you have something more pressing to say, I really need to get back to…” 

 

            “What you need,” Jane interrupted her mid-sentence, his eyes still closed and his mouth slack, “is to go home and get some sleep.”

 

 _You need it too,_ she replied to him silently, but she knew she could never say it out loud. Insomnia had never been a foreign thing to him, like it had been to everybody else on the unit for the past three days.

           

            “If we want to find him alive,” Jane continued on and she bristled at the implication of finding Cho any other way _than_ alive, “you should get some sleep. I’ll even let you have my couch.”  

 

Of course, they all wanted Cho back alive, as finding him dead wasn’t an option, no matter what the bureau believed—but Jane _needed_ him back alive; if only to remind the consultant  (and everybody else within the unit and within the bureau) that Red John _did_ make mistakes, and that Red John—like them all—was only human.


	5. Grace Van Pelt

“He’s a smug bastard and Lisbon knows it too.”

 

Grace Van Pelt remained quiet, as she heard Rigsby curse about Jane again. From within the moving SUV, her eyes didn’t stray from the seemingly endless trails of trees that stood in the Californian heat. She heard Rigsby lay on the horn at something ahead of them and she felt the strong need to comfort him, but she had no idea what to say that wouldn’t set him off even more.

 

_I’m sorry. We’ll find him. Everything will be okay. It’s not Jane’s fault. It’s not Lisbon’s fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not Cho’s fault. It’s not your fault. I understand._

The very definition of comfort was to provide relief from pain or anxiety and she knew, from personal experience, that none of those statements provided relief from pain or anxiety. Hearing _I understand_ and _I’m sorry_ from various family members’ and friends’ after Craig O’Laughlin’s death had outraged her and she wouldn’t dare let that phrase slip from her lips. She respected her co-workers and friends—Rigsby, Jane, Lisbon and Cho—way too much to disrespect them with a toss-off line like _I understand_.

 

Cho had only been missing for four days and everybody on the team was slowly falling apart.

 

Sure, she couldn’t read body language or uncover thoughts like Jane could with a simple hand gesture, but she could rely on the fact that she just _knew_ her friends. Rigsby had gained an even shorter temper, Lisbon was calling in countless favors from anybody and everybody she knew and Jane, even though he pretended to be a _smug bastard_ , was one word away from doing something crazy.

 

She hated seeing her friends hurt; all of them were good people and none of them had done anything wrong to deserve being shot at or threatened or kidnapped by a raging psychopath, who apparently had nothing better to do than kill people, hack into her computer, and then taunt them all.

 

But, she also hated the idea that _any_ of her friends could be dead; Cho was one of her friends—he was somebody, who she truly cared about and who she enjoyed being around—and the very thought of his death at the hands of Red John sent her into a rapid fit of blinking. If Red John could go after somebody like Cho—somebody so good—what prevented him from coming after sweet Rigsby or innocent Benjamin? What prevented him from going after burdened Jane or headstrong Lisbon? She felt her heart drop into her stomach. What prevented him from going after her?

 

She blinked to clear her blurry vision. Chasing after criminals obviously had risks; with serial killers, there was always the slightest chance that one could die via any numerous amount of ways—being buried alive, being burned alive, being drowned, being frozen to death, being stabbed, being suffocated, or just being strangulated—or with a first time criminal, there was always the chance of being caught in the crossfire of a bad situation.

 

With first time criminals, mistakes happened—the criminal left behind fingerprints, the killer trusted the wrong person, the arsonist, who thought they were smarter than they truly were—and they could bring justice to the victimized families (as there was no such thing as a _victimless crime_ , in her own opinion). 

 

With serial killers, like Red John though, mistakes rarely happened—Red John didn’t leave fingerprints, Red John killed everybody who crossed him, Red John _was_ smarter than everybody else—and bringing justice to the victimized families was just another fairy tale; something wished upon, but could never fully be obtained.

 

That was why, some days, she truly despised her job.

 

If they couldn’t catch every single criminal that darkened doorsteps or murdered loved ones, then what was the point of their jobs? They were supposed to protect everybody, and yet, they couldn’t even protect or save one of their own? It was ludicrous.

 

            “If I hear _he’ll be fine_ from Jane’s mouth again, I’ll give him something to be less than fine about.” Wayne’s voice interrupted her thoughts and glanced at him, a frown across her face. Wayne had a violent streak— _it’s not uncommon_ , Jane had once said—but she had never thought he’d lift his fists toward Jane.

 

Of course, she couldn’t deny that Jane deserved to be punched; the amount of times he had almost gotten then killed through his inane stunts nearly outweighed the amount of times they had saved his life, but he didn’t deserve to be punched (or injured) for the actions of one crazed serial killer.

 

Jane couldn’t control the actions of Red John any more than she or Wayne could control the weather.

 

            “We could be out finding him,” Wayne continued and she watched his jaw clench in unmistakable anger, “instead, we’re off cleaning up Jane’s messes and he’s off sleeping on his couch.”

 

They weren’t off cleaning up Jane’s messes, per se, they were off using his messes to gain them favors to find Cho. Lisbon had asked them to do it.

 

But she wasn’t about to correct him.

 

            “Gun or no gun, I still think he should be out here helping us.”

 

 Lisbon had kept Jane behind at the office, which she completely understood. Red John unhinged Jane enough already and they certainly didn’t want another kidnapping. Her eyes refocused on Wayne’s clenched jaw and she took a deep breath; she wanted to be sympathetic to him and his anger, but he wasn’t the only one hurting—wasn’t the only nervous one—and he, most certainly, wasn’t the only one trying to find Cho.

 

            “And who knows?” She heard him speak again. “Maybe it’ll give Red John enough motivation to come after Jane too.”

 

Before he could speak again, she smacked him—hard—on the arm.

 

            “You shouldn’t say things like that, Wayne.” She chided, sharply and he said nothing. She understood why he felt that way—Wayne saw Cho as a best friend—and if her best friend went missing, nothing would stop her from looking, but wishing _that_ kind of harm on another person made her stomach churn. “If Jane went missing, you know you’d feel guilty.” Wayne snorted and she narrowed her eyes; had he completely forgotten that Jane was their friend too?

 

 _I spend hours hoping this will one day end,_ she thought with a quivering lip, _and I spend hours praying that we’ll all make it through tomorrow too._


	6. Kimball Cho

Death had never intimidated Kimball Cho, even as he stood mere feet from its ominous threshold. His head continued to pound, his ribs throbbed painfully (judging by the sharp pain on both upper sides of his body, he’d say they were probably cracked) and he felt the tip of something sharp press against his bare upper back.  His neck wasn’t restrained and he could have turned his head to stare at whoever was behind him, but what was the point? He couldn’t see anything due to the blindfold and whoever stood behind him—whether it be Red John or one of his less minions—wouldn’t be so careless not to mask their identity from him, just in case something went wrong.

 

Red John was many things—malicious, unfeeling, homicidal—but he was most certainly wasn’t asinine. Red John had a plan and from what he had been able to pick up on, Red John had a plan for him.

 

His shifted slightly; ignoring the sharp pain in his ribs and the sound of metal resounding together. His arms were imprisoned high upon the wall; wrists pinched by burning metal, cool against his skin, and he honestly had no clue of how long he had been there. Had it been hours? Days? Weeks? Months? Everything had eventually bled together, until his hands and fingers went numb from the prolonged imprisonment.

 

Considering how Red John dealt with his various other victims—slitting their throats with his sharpened kitchen blade, hollowing out their chest cavities with the intent to spread terror, splitting open their rib cages with his gloved hands to grace the stagnant heart with his gentle caress, slicing through the supple skin of their bare legs and thighs to leave nothing more than a bleeding smiley face behind above them, so he could be feared, remembered and admired by all—he knew how his story was going to end, long before the first fatal cut came.

 

And when it _did_ finally come, he wasn’t going to give Red John the ultimate satisfaction of a reaction; he’d keep his face blank, try and ignore the scorching pain, until he either went unconscious from blood loss or Red John finished him off.

 

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the gentle moving of the knife—the pressure of the sharp blade not so great to draw blood, but just enough to where he could feel the motion—he felt the tip of the blade circle upon his back, before he realized with a lurching feeling in the pit of his stomach that it wasn’t just a _harmless circle._

 

It was _his_ smiley face; a small circle for an outside base, two tilted slits for all-seeing eyes and a curved upward line for a leering mouth.

 

Red John (or someone close to Red John) was marking him for death, and yet he still wasn’t intimidated or alarmed by the thought. Maybe he had spent so long around death—the gang, the military, the Serious Crimes Unit—that the notion of his own death didn’t trouble him anymore? Or maybe chasing after Red John had given him the chance to contemplate that somebody from the Serious Crimes Unit—Lisbon, Rigsby, Van Pelt, or himself—would eventually find themselves caught in the crossfire of Red John and Patrick Jane’s game. He just had never thought it would have been him, confined against a wall and anticipating his inevitable death.

 

Then again, whoever thought it would be them? Being abducted or being murdered wasn’t something most people thought about, outside of writers and actual killers.

 

Death and dying were obviously parts of his job; he frequently went into dismal places alone, never got away from the lingering images of death behind his closed eyelids and he sometimes found himself standing at the end of various weapons for trying to do the _right thing_ by protecting and saving lives.

 

But what made protecting and saving lives the _right thing_ to do? He had read enough novels to discern that the antagonist—the supposed villain, who killed others or illegally procured objects or was just loathed by everybody for being different—wasn’t always the bad guy. Sometimes, it was the protagonist—the supposed good guy, who saved others or protected objects from being robbed or was just loved by everybody for being _good_ —who had it all wrong.

 

_He’s on a path of love and enlightenment,_ he vaguely remembered Rebecca saying.

 

And in the eyes of Red John, they all had it wrong. He wasn’t the villain, who was slaughtering dozens. He was the good guy, who was saving others from the perpetual darkness festering within themselves.

 

Misunderstood righteousness or not, if Red John _did_ kill him; his only regret at that moment was going to be that he hadn’t been able to kill the murderer himself. Yeah, Jane had a million and one reasons to gut the serial killer—the death of his wife and child, the continuing taunts and reminders left behind—but he had just one; his abduction, and that was a good enough of a reason to fire off several rounds of ammunition into the asshole’s chest.

 

Thinking of Jane, he wondered how close the team was on his trail. He had no doubts that they would eventually find him, as Lisbon wouldn’t consider any other option besides him being alive and well, but he had a feeling that the other options needed to be considered also. Red John hadn’t just abducted him for fun. Red John hadn’t just abducted him to make an example out of him for the entire team and Jane.

 

He felt a gloved hand stroke his bare back and shoulders, and he steadied himself for the end.  He wouldn’t scream. He wouldn’t speak. He wouldn’t beg for mercy or for his life, because he had more dignity than that. He felt the knife on his bare back again—lightly pressing, the tip still sharp enough to draw blood—and he kept his eyes open; blindfold or not, he wanted to greet death himself.

 

And when the knife finally gained more pressure and the first incision graced his lower back, long-drawn-out and agonizing—Red John straying from his usual pattern of slicing the throat first, gifting the victim with some form of mercy—he only hoped the team would catch the bastard and put him six feet underground too.


End file.
